NANAIMO, B.C. – A complete team effort, as cliché as it sounds, is what it took for Durham College to earn their first victory at the CCAA men's soccer national championship.
 
The Lords defeated the Ahuntsic Indiens 4-2 in their bronze medal quarter-final match on Thursday afternoon.
 
Durham looked to a variety of different players as both Nicholas Axhorn (Pickering, Ont.) and Robert Baxter-Dennis (Scarborough, Ont.) were forced to leave Wednesday's match against NAIT with injuries.
 
Daniel Kaminski (Oshawa, Ont.) and Andres Murillo Marrugat (Whitby, Ont.) got the start in their place, with some shuffling around the field to fill in the gaps.
 
Back-to-back OCAA east division defensive player of the year, Cody Kraemer, said there were some adjustments at the back, but overall things didn't change for him.
 
"My role didn't really change today, I had a job to do," said Kraemer. "Yesterday in the first game everybody was a little nervous I think. Losing two key defenders early is never a good thing, but today we came in and were more composed, settled into the tournament and were much were positive, which helped a lot. We conceded two goals today, which were preventable from our stand point so there are still a few things to work on."
 
Marrugat opened the scoring for the Lords in the 14^th minute, finishing off a great back-and-forth with captain Bruce Cullen (Pickering, Ont.), including Cullen spinning around an Ahuntsic defender before letting Marrugat finish off the play.
 
Before the half Cullen scored his own goal of the match as he caught the Indiens keeper out of position and blasted the ball from roughly 50 yards out over his head into the empty net. In the 39^th the first red card of the tournament was handed out to Guillaume Hodonou, putting Ahuntsic a man down for the remainder of the match.
 
At halftime the Lords held their 2-0 lead.
 
To open second half, Cullen didn't return to the match as Xavier Wright (Toronto, Ont.) took his spot in the midfield.
 
Jeremy Bangala (Pickering, Ont.) pushed the lead to 3-0 in the 72^nd minute, but Ahuntsic's Yves Wesley Wandje Djomze answered on the next possession of the match to make it a two-goal game again.
 
Durham then answered with their final goal of the match for the third goal in three minutes as Nate Paine (Whitby, Ont.) put a perfect ball into the box for Stephane Ahanda (Cameroon) to tip into the empty net.
 
Leser Ami-Or scored the final goal for the Indiens as the Lords advanced to Friday's bronze medal semifinal against the Keyano Huskies at 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST). Keyano dropped a 1-0 decision to the Douglas Royals in Thursday's semifinal.
 
"We just need to get some good rest, some good food and we'll have a team talk to discuss tomorrow," said Kraemer. "We have to come out and play positive again tomorrow, work hard and we'll have a chance at winning."